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IS HIAC RUINED FOR GOOD, WILL WWE EVER LISTEN TO THE FANS, WRESTLING LOGIC AND MORE

By Dave Scherer on 2019-10-16 10:00:00

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I thought that the first episode of NWA Power was great. It was a fun throwback to 1980s studio wrestling with old school-style matches. It's just another example of the new variety of wrestling options we have along with AEW, NXT, and main-roster WWE (provided that the latter doesn't suffer from abysmal booking). What's the word on NWA's PPV schedule?

They have a PPV scheduled for December!

Are Raw and Smackdown allowed to trade wrestlers with each other if they want someone from the other show? 

If Vince McMahon decided that they are, then yes!  WWE makes the rules (remember the Wild Card weeks after the earlier draft this year?).

There is a lot of controversy about the ending of the Wyatt/Rollins HIAC match.  But isn't the problem not so much the ending, but rather the rushing to HIAC?  This is the first match in what should be a good feud.  It SHOULD end in a double DQ or a count-out or some other non-clean ending to kick start the feud.  That's Wrestling 101.  The problem is that they started at the end -- a cage match, or a HIAC match, is intended to be a "Once and for all, after a bunch of matches that didn't end with a decisive winner, we will finally get a definitive winner or loser." Take this same match with the same ending and have it in a non-cage, non-gimmick match, and people are praising it all over for being a awesome, brutal match and looking forward to more from these two.  But by rushing to HIAC, all anyone can think of is, "Hey!  Hell in a cell should always have a winner, isn't that the whole idea?"  

I think WWE effectively ruined HIAC when they made it a PPV.  I remember back when they did the first CM Punk vs. Undertaker match in the Cell.  The Cell used to be where feuds culminated.  Since it’s become a PPV it has lost its luster, for sure.  I would love to see it go back to being what it was meant to be, a place to end feuds.  But booking a horrible finish like they did for The Fiend and Seth Rollins doesn’t give me any hope for that happening.

I’ve often wondered if wrestlers see themselves as sports competitors who watch themselves on TV or of they feel they are soap characters for whom theirs is the real world.  Eddie Edwards knows that his drink was spiked by Reno Scum because he saw it on television.  Yet, he doesn’t know what Ace Austin is up to, and neither does Alysha, despite those actions being shown on television.  Is this a breach of wrestling logic that is far worse than we’ve seen for a while. 

There is definitely a lot of “you have to suspend disbelief (and your intelligence)” in pro wrestling.  At times, it’s fine when the story captivates the viewer.  Other times, the logic lapses are so egregious the viewer can’t help but notice.

On the Fox debut episode, the heavily promoted Lesner-Kingston main event match was crammed into the final 10 minutes of the show, lasted only about 15 seconds (one move and the fan favorite exits from the ring unseen), and turned out to be only a way to introduce a new angle.  The Rollins-Fiend match at Hell in a Cell ended in a very unsatisfactory, hard to explain way.  I wonder if WWE will ever get the message that main events are supposed to satisfy the fans, not anger them.

Well, if fans chanting “AEW” and “Cancel The Network” at their shows doesn’t do it, I don’t know if anything will.  It’s sad, it really is.

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